Senate challenger: Kerry gullible for approving Iraq invasion

U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Beatty says even though he’s an Army veteran and a Republican, he never would have voted to authorize the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Beatty is hoping to unseat Sen. John Kerry, who voted in favor of the invasion.

Kerry, Beatty contends, should have known the Bush administration’s evidence for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was inadequate.

“If you’re that gullible, we don’t need you making those kinds of decisions,” he said in an interview at The Enterprise office on Tuesday.

Kerry spokeswoman Brigid O’Rourke responded that Kerry regrets the vote and has been “one of Congress’ most outspoken advocates to stop the Bush policy and end the war.”

“Jeff Beatty’s full of malarkey,” O’Rourke said in an e-mail. “These Karl Rove-style attacks are getting old.”

Beatty, a former Army Delta Force commander, FBI agent and CIA officer, said he was invited to a Pentagon briefing about Iraq prior to the invasion — but it didn’t include any hard evidence of weapons production in Iraq.

Kerry and other members of Congress had access to the same information and should have been more skeptical, he said.

Beatty has never held public office and is facing one of the most well-known members of the Senate in Kerry.

He says talking with voters made him want to run.

“They’re tired of career politicians,” said Beatty, a Harwich resident.

Kerry is being challenged in the Sept. 16 Democratic primary by attorney Ed O’Reilly. Beatty will face the winner in the general election in November.